As a young child, Lydia and her sister were sent to live with grandparents they'd never even met. It's a cruel and loveless new world for them and it teaches Lydia to grow up fast. She learns to keep secrets and to trust sparingly. And through it all she suppresses her grief and guilt, believing she is to blame for her mother's death. Now, twenty-eight years later, Lydia is persuaded to leave behind the safe new life she has created in Venice, and return to England to face the past. And maybe her future.